


Shades of History to Be

by Cyn2K



Series: Future History [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Adopted Children, Future Fic, Hockey Hall of Fame, M/M, Magical Realism, Parenthood, Stanley Cup Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 21:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17630126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyn2K/pseuds/Cyn2K
Summary: Jack Zimmermann has had a life-altering experience with Stanley Cup Magic after his third cup win. Now what?Jack and Bitty start a family and make other changes to their lives. Bob is nominated to the Hockey Hall of Fame. A new opportunity presents itself.





	Shades of History to Be

**Author's Note:**

> Check, Please! and its wonderful characters still belong to Ngozi Ukazu. I'm just taking them out of the drawer to play with for a bit.

Life in Montreal continues after the Hab’s cup win and the incident with the photo albums that Jack has never talked about. He continues to play hockey, attends charity events, and does a select few endorsements and photo shoots. He starts participating in and contributing to the Zimmermann Foundation, a charitable foundation Bob started years ago to fund and support sports programs in rural communities of Canada..

 

Bitty continues to write and vlog, with Alicia and Bob as occasional guest stars. #badbobbakes continues to trend on Twitter and Instagram, followed by #aliciazisasaint. The first time that hashtag appears, Alicia can’t stop giggling.  Bob is very proud. Shitty finally makes his own appearance, but Bitty has to bleep out much of his rantings.

 

They decide it’s time to start their family.  Suzanne and Alicia high-five the next time they meet.

 

After reading about the difficulties sibling groups, especially boys, have in getting adopted together, Jack and Bitty decide to adopt a family group. After many home visits, adoptive parent classes, and meetings with social workers, lawyers, and kids awaiting adoption, Remi, age 10, and Francois, age 7, become Bittle-Zimmermanns. Francois immediately announces that with a mouthful of a last name like that, he wants to be called Frank.

 

Two months after the adoption is final, Bitty receives a call from his cousin Tawana, who is 22 weeks pregnant and whose boyfriend is now somewhere in Florida with Tawana’s best friend Raylene. Tawana asks Bitty if there was any way he could adopt the daughter she carries, as she doesn’t think she can parent alone and she wouldn’t trust The Jerk or Raylene with a cardboard box, much less a child.

 

Tawana doesn’t have a passport, so they arrange for her to fly to Vermont and drive down to visit with her for a few days. Jack takes one look at Tawana’s big brown eyes, so like Bitty’s, and agrees. He’d secretly hoped to talk Bitty into considering a surrogate for another child or two. They drive to the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury to celebrate with ice cream, which Remi and Frank think is an awesome way to conclude anything.

 

Tawana gets a passport and comes to live with them in Canada for the birth. She finds Remi and Frank adorable, and they think her accent is worse than Daddy’s. It is.

  
Anna-Sophie is born 2 weeks early. One look at those big eyes, still blue, but so much like Bitty’s, and Jack is instantly in love with his daughter. Since it is a family adoption, even if Tawana and The Jerk are American, the adoption goes relatively quickly. The Jerk is glad to sign the papers, as Raylene is also pregnant and throwing a fit about his plans for swamp tours in Florida. Anna-Sophie’s new brothers find her a bit squishy and smelly, but admit she’s cute, sort of.

 

Suzanne and Alicia are thrilled to be grandmothers, and can’t help but notice that their granddaughter’s initials are a combination of theirs. They think it was Jack’s idea, as he is prone to notice such things. It wasn’t Jack’s idea. Remi suggests the name to Bitty after meeting both of his grandmothers at the same time. He says it might help avoid fights. He’s not wrong.

Nanny Celeste joins the household to help with the kids when Jack’s away and Bitty is working. The cookbook needs editing, and his agent and publisher are already requesting a book tour, guest appearances, and an outline for his fourth book.

 

\-------------

  
  


At 37, Jack retires from hockey.  He’s made his mark - 3 franchises, 3 Stanley Cup wins, a trophy case worth bragging about (if he were the sort to brag), and legs he can use without pain most of the time. He’d prefer to keep it that way.

 

Jack is delighted at the thought that he will now have more time to spend with his family. Bitty has just sent his fourth cookbook off to the publishers, and has agreed that a break is in order so they can settle together as a family and plan the next stage of their lives.

 

Jack also spends more time with Bob, attending meetings for the Zimmermann Foundation as well as various NHL functions, and joins the board of You Can Play. He spends more time with hockey retirees, both legends and lesser-knowns. 

 

As usually happens, discussion often revolves around playoffs past and present.  And sometimes, sometimes, someone will bring up Cup magic. Jack listens, but does not talk about his own experience. Not this time, he thinks. Not yet. He nods in understanding with those speaking.  Bob and others take notice of Jack’s reaction.

 

\---------

 

Another year passes. 

 

Jack tries modeling, with some success. Bitty is very, very fond of the Armani layout Jack does and rewards him lavishly, to their mutual satisfaction. Alicia also persuades him to try acting, with less success. The boys are in school, and have started playing hockey, as most of their friends do. Neither boy shows interest in following their parents and grandfathers into sports.

 

\---------

 

Bob is nominated to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the whole family travels to Toronto for the induction ceremony. Jack’s family arrives early, the boys enjoying a mini-vacation from school. They tour the Hockey Hall of Fame with one of the curators on a VIP tour. Jack and the curator, Mr. Delahaye, find common ground in the Hometown Hockey display covering hockey during WWII, sparking a discussion that lasts much longer than expected. They find Bitty beating both boys in a shootout against virtual goalies, to the boys’ loud protests. 

 

They spend a day at Niagara Falls, and take the boat tour even though it’s nearly the end of the season. Jack and the boys enjoy the wind and the water, despite the cool temperatures. Bitty and Anna-Sophie stay further back, attempting to stay drier, with only minimal success. They agree it was completely worth getting wet.

 

At the ceremony, Remi and Frank are not thrilled about having to wear suits and be around a bunch of old guys who want to talk to their Papa and Grandpa. Anna-Sophie, who turns 3 a week after the ceremony, is sure that the whole party is for her, and not for her grandfather, and has a marvelous time.

 

After the induction ceremony, Alicia and Bitty leave early to put Anna-Sophie to sleep, and the boys go as well, with the promise of action movies and popcorn at the hotel. Jack stays late, talking with his dad and other retired players, including at least two of his uncles. 

 

The talk turns to the retelling of old stories, many of which Jack has heard most of his life. And once again, Cup stories make their way into the conversation. Pool parties, weird meals, trips home, celebrations of all sorts. Bob receives more teasing for Jack’s first interaction with the Cup, although both men just laugh. Jack’s own experience with parenthood and diapers lets him see the humor more than the embarrassment these days.

As the hour grows later and the tongues grow looser, the stories grow stranger.  Ghost stories turn into “I heard about” stories, and eventually, witness stories are told, and the later it gets, the odder the stories become. People switching bodies, going back in time, lost loves, giving up hockey. That last draws the biggest reaction. Jack, who’s tired and a little more drunk than he thought, nods his head and says he wished on his final Cup. He’s never told a soul about the photo albums in his grandparents’ attic, but he can’t seem to stop talking about how finding those albums gave him the courage to go back to hockey after his overdose. 

 

Jack doesn’t notice the amazement on his dad’s face, or the knowing looks of some of the other veterans around, or the nods of the museum staff at the back of the room.

 

The next morning, Jack gets a phone call while having breakfast with the whole family. Mr. Delahaye wants to meet with him that morning, if he’s available. Jack arranges to meet at the museum in an hour. Alicia and Bitty agree to take the kids swimming for a couple of hours before catching up to plan the rest of their last day in Toronto. Bob will go with Jack.

 

At the meeting, Delahaye and a number of his staff meet with Jack and Bob in a conference room. They start off talking about the history of hockey, which Jack enjoys thoroughly. He and the curator pick up their conversation about hockey and the wars with the effects of PTSD of returning soldiers and whether hockey was a form of therapy or additional stress. After a while, they notice the rest of the room has gone silent.

  
Delahaye apologizes, and reveals the reason for the meeting today. They wish to offer Jack a position with the museum as the Cup historian, as they felt the need for someone with a player’s perspective who also had a passion for the history of the sport, but they need someone with experience in Cup magic to start collecting those stories. Jack would fill a unique niche for the museum, as Cup magic stories would be hard to obtain. His own experiences will make it easier to collect these stories from players who might otherwise be reluctant to share. The museum is afraid that the oldest stories are lost, but wants to make sure that stories like Jack’s, and the other stories told last night, are at least preserved for future players affected by Cup magic.

 

Jack admits he’s interested, but would need to talk it over with his family, as the kids are in school and it would mean uprooting them. 

 

The family discusses the offer at length, but ultimately end up deciding to take the offer. Jack is uniquely suited to the position. Bob admits that he’s known that the museum had been searching for someone for the position for years. Bitty can’t believe Jack has kept this story to himself all these years.

 

The Bittle-Zimmermanns settle into life in Toronto with surprising ease. Bitty admits to some relief to be back in a predominately English-speaking city. While his French had vastly improved in his years with Jack, and in 7 years of living in Montreal, he still speaks with a pronounced accent.

 

Story-gathering is more straightforward than Jack had initially feared. The Hockey Hall of Fame has been looking for someone for this role for a long time. Bob and Uncle Mario start spreading the word of Jack’s new role, and he receives his first message within a week.

 

Jack's name and contacts alone ends up expanding the archive by a factor of 3, as more players, and even the children and grandchildren of players, bring their stories to the Archive. Jack enjoys what he does, but still wonders why he was asked, when so many others could have done the job as well. He eventually asks the question.

 

Turns out Bob and Uncle Mario both had suspected that  _ something _ had happened to Jack, they just didn’t know what or when. Uncle Mario had eventually suggested Jack’s name to the Archive. Delahaye had liked the idea, but it wasn’t until he had talked to Jack himself that he knew Jack was the right man for the job.

 

Jack’s archive notes end up becoming the reference guide when something goes awry during those Cup Days of summer. Bob has no stories in the archive, but Mario’s pool party story does end up, listed under his name and cross-referenced under water, backyard, poor wording, multiple parties affected, and more than 24 hour/less than 3 day duration.

 

The kids continue to grow into their own, but that’s another story for another time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> At long last, the sequel to my first-ever fan fiction, and it's my second-ever fan fiction. I'm sorry it's taken so long.
> 
> The first story started off as a not-fic that ended up being a present-tense fic. I've kept, or at least tried to keep, the same present tense in this story as well, although it's not a style I normally use, and this is not beta'd. Please let me know if I've made some egregious error.
> 
> I have had this story in pieces for months, and even in nearly-complete form for at least 6 months. I finally decided tonight that I would polish it up as much as I could and get it out there for others to enjoy/fret over, so that I can try to work on some of the other ideas I've got sitting around.
> 
> Thank you, once again, for reading!


End file.
